Forget about why would they - they can't get here. The speed of light is too slow. They can't even detect earth exists much less there is life (dinosaurs). detectable signals won't reach then for a long time if they even can reach them.

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rolph 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

The existence of radio waves was first proven by German physicist Heinrich Hertz on 11 November 1886.

The first commercial radio broadcast was transmitted on 2 November 1920

that means intentional radio signal was underway about 100 years ago.

so suppose that signal despite the "low" power is heard by someone that listens very closely. they tease it out of the noise, and right away know what it is, and try to send back.

at most, they are about 50 radio-years away, if thier signal reaches us now.

beyond that, no signal from earth has propagated that far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_star_systems_within_45...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GJ_3929

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISE_1534%E2%88%921043

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tzs 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Forget about why would they - they can't get here. The speed of light is too slow.

They could get here in a generation ship. Heck, we could almost build a generation ship that could reach another solar system.

First, there is the traditional generation ship where you set up a closed self sustaining ecosystem. I don't think we are anywhere near able to make such a closed system that would last for a trip to another star, but give it another few decades and there is probably a good chance we'll know how.

Second, there is another kind of generation ship that is called a seed ship or embryo ship. Your ship just carries a small crew, plus frozen eggs and sperm. During the trip as the crew ages you use artificial wombs to make babies from the frozen eggs and sperm and raise them to be the new crew. Any people you will need other than the crew at the destination (e.g., colonists if this is a colonizing mission) also come from the frozen eggs and sperm.

With enough automation the crew could be quite small. I once calculated the mass of high calorie density food that would be needed to sustain a small crew for thousands of years and it was actually small enough that I'd expect a civilization maybe a century more advanced in space than ours to maybe be able to manage. With that you don't need to solve the problem of making a closed self-sustaining ecosystem.

	▲	inejge 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		> With enough automation the crew [of a generation ship] could be quite small. Other than the engineering challenges, we don't have the faintest idea how a really long-term crew is going to work socially and psychologically in a constrained, isolated, artificial environment. The closest analog are the naval/polar expeditions, which were unisex and under military or hierarchical command, none of them longer than a couple of years. Some perished (Franklin), some pivoted (Shackleton w/Endurance), some failed with loss of life (Scott), some worked (Amundsen). But all had options unavailable to a ship in vacuum, and were on an incomparably shorter timescale.

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HappySweeney 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I would caution applying our current understanding and limitations onto alien civilizations. I don't believe they will break the light barrier, but they may develop telescopes that can detect life from light-years away, and the stupendous travel times are possible with suspended animation or by stopping the aging process.

	▲	bluGill 7 days ago \| parent [-]
		While we don't know everything, we do know what we don't know needs to be consistent with what we know. Relativity is well supported by experiments, so whatever this thing is we don't know will have all the things you don't like about relativity. telestope limits exist in theory not just our manufacturing abilities.